(Apr 2025)
The technological acceleration outpaces our societal and educational infrastructure, creating a lack of meaningful resources to manage and understand the porn that saturates the internet. Porn is a primary source of sex education, and it reinforces patriarchal roles, exemplified by the observation that “mainstream porn is, bluntly put, porn made by men for men” (Reiss & Dahlman). My proposed solution to this problem (while not a main focus in this paper) is a comprehensive and destigmatized sex education enforced in schools. In this paper, I aim to investigate how gender roles are reinforced in mainstream pornography, and how the rapid expansion of technology contributes to the normalization— and often unregulated spread—of these representations.
I review key scholarly and peer-reviewed literature—including works by Reiss and Dahlman (2024), Sunčič (2013), Cardoso and Paasonen (2020), and Corsianos (2007)—to examine the intersection of pornography, technology, and the reinforcement of gendered and patriarchal norms. To frame this discussion, I draw on Andrea Dworkin’s radical feminist theory as a foundational lens. My methodology centers on intersectional analysis, a framework that explores how overlapping dimensions of identity—such as gender, race, class, and sexuality—interact to shape individual experiences of power, marginalization, and privilege.
“A New Kind of Death” by Rose A. Owen analyzes rape, sex, and pornography through Andrea Dworkin’s radical feminist framework. In this piece, “Dworkin (1989) treats pornography as a ‘blueprint of male supremacy,’ which provides a privileged site for anatomizing, in often excruciating detail, the dynamics of sexual violence (xxxix).” Dworkin argues pornography teaches and desensitizes sexual violence and rape. She explains how pornography objectifies women and “obscures that objectification behind the guise of consent and sexualization.” Essentially, she understands pornography at its root as constituting violence against women, shielded by a false narrative of consent.
Connecting this to the rise in technology, it is noted that “feminists blamed violence in media, and later pornography, for the prevalence of rape, domestic abuse, and sexual harassment” (Duberman 2020). Organizations such as Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW) formed in response to Snuff, a film ending in the seduction and murder of an actress. A sister organization, Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM), focused specifically on pornography. Following Andrea Dworkin’s anti-porn view, WAVPM drew a connection between pornography and violence against women. With the help of Catharine MacKinnon, Dworkin helped establish the Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance definition of pornography:
“the graphic, sexually explicit subordination of women in pictures and/or words that also includes women presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; or women presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain or humiliation; or women presented as sexual objects who experience sexual pleasure in being raped; or women presented as sexual objects tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt. (Dworkin 1989, xxxiii)”
To summarize “A New Kind of Death” in the context of this research paper, Rose A. Owen’s analysis of pornography through Dworkin’s radical feminist framework views porn as “patriarchal violence hidden through consent and sexualization.”
To understand Andrea Dworkin’s philosophy, it is useful to turn to her own works. In Pornography: Men Possessing Women, she draws an unprecedented parallel between women in pornography and Jews in concentration camps, stating, “In contemporary American pornography, of course, the Jews do do it to themselves—they, usually female, seek out the Nazis, go voluntarily to concentration camps, beg a domineering Nazi to hurt them, cut them, burn them—and they do climax, stupendously, to both sadism and death” (Dworkin 130). This analogy of women entering pornography as a voluntary concentration camp ties into the reinforcement of patriarchal roles: men as the dominant force, women as the subordinated.
Dworkin identifies key themes in pornography: “Male power, as expressed in and through pornography, is discernible in discrete but interwoven, reinforcing strains: the power of self, physical power over and against others, the power of terror, the power of naming, the power of owning, the power of money, and the power of sex” (Dworkin 135). These strains are intrinsic to the production of pornography and normalized in media. Another powerful analogy she offers is the photograph captioned “BEAVER HUNTERS,” where two white men dressed as hunters sit in a black jeep with a white woman tied to the front of the car. Naked, twisted, and completely still, she represents the men’s trophy, connecting to the power of money, ownership, and sex. The implication is that the “untamed” female is dangerous, and must be hunted, possessed, and displayed.
In Intercourse, Dworkin offers a radical examination of sex and the role pornography plays in shaping sexual dynamics. In the preface, she writes, “Equality in the realm of sex is an antisexual idea if sex requires dominance in order to register as sensation.” This challenges the assumption that dominance and submission are intrinsic to sex. Dworkin argues sexual equality cannot exist if one party must dominate the other.
She references The Kreutzer Sonata, a book opposing intercourse, especially in marriage. Following Pozdnyshev and the events leading to his murder of his wife, the narrative illustrates how sex, jealousy, and ownership can turn deadly. Dworkin sees this as an example of how sex under patriarchy becomes less about connection and more about control and violence. “Any violation of a woman's body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography” (Dworkin). In Intercourse, she critiques a culture that eroticizes the domination of women and calls for a reimagining of sex as reciprocal, respectful, and egalitarian.
Reiss and Dahlman’s article “‘I Need You Inside of Me’” analyzes how pornography shapes and structures our understanding of bodies, particularly within gender roles. It discusses how pornography reinforces traditional ideas such as male domination and female submission, but also how pornography can potentially challenge these norms to create more equal, respectful, and non-traditional dynamics. “Mainstream porn is, bluntly put, porn made by men for men” (Reiss & Dahlman 2024). They argue that most porn is made by men for men and reproduces gender inequality.
The internet has become the primary distribution channel for pornography, and as it has rapidly expanded, mainstream pornography has grown in parallel. Pornography is designed to create sexual arousal and profit in an industry largely driven by and catered to a male-dominated mass market. Reiss and Dahlman then introduce the idea of feminist pornography, centering female lust and desire. They note that “feminist pornography draws on principles like authentic and diverse representation of bodies, genders, fantasies, and sexuality, and fair-trade production” as an alternative framework.
They analyze a specific site called “Erotic Stories” as a case study in feminist pornography. “Erotic Stories can thus be seen as yet another commercial organization that rides the wave of feminism to position itself in a more politically aware market” (Ciclitira, 2004). Erotic Stories differentiates itself in part through its emphasis on audio pornography: there are no physical bodies visible on screen, which allows users to rely on imagination and avoid objectification of real bodies. In the context of this paper, “‘I Need You Inside of Me’” illustrates one way to challenge mainstream patriarchal porn without attempting to abolish it entirely.
Mitja Sunčič’s “The Porn Drift: Pornography, Technology, and Masturbation” explores how technological change reshapes pornography and its relationship to real-life sexual experience. Sunčič introduces the concept of “Porn Drift,” describing the disconnect between pornography and lived sexual experiences. This helps explain how individuals, especially those with limited sexual experience, may form distorted expectations of sex.
Sunčič describes how the development of technology enabled “gonzo pornography,” which was marketed as more realistic, often shot from a first-person point of view. Yet, in attempting to represent the “Real,” gonzo porn intensified degrading and demanding sexual acts directed at female performers: “The way gonzo directors pursued the goal of finding the Real was by adding more and more intense sexual acts that were often degrading to and demanding of the female performers” (Sunčič 61). Some directors openly deprioritized women’s pleasure, focusing instead on male gratification. While the gonzo trend claimed to bring porn closer to reality, it deepened gender imbalances and normalized male-centric power dynamics.
Sunčič also reflects on the role of the camera: “it would be naïve to believe that the camera, as the central technological artifact of the entertainment industry, only captures what goes on in the real world. Its role is not the passive one of just a receptor of the real; instead, it plays an active role, the role of creating a new, technologically mediated reality” (Sunčič 62). Technology, in this sense, not only records but actively shapes and amplifies certain sexual scripts.
Cardoso and Paasonen’s “The Value of Print, the Value of Porn” discusses the role of print magazines such as Ménage à trois and Phile in the porn ecosystem, especially from queer-feminist perspectives. While most mainstream porn is consumed as online video, these magazines work in print and are rooted in a post-pornography ethos. Post-porn “involves self-referential play with normalized assumptions of sexual representation and can, to a degree, be understood as a reparative approach to pornography” (Albury 2009).
Ménage à trois and Phile blend photography, comics, drawings, essays, and short stories, with a strong artistic focus. Their physical format sets them apart from generic porn magazines, subverting expectations around size, layout, and representational conventions. The DIY and low-profit nature of these projects further emphasizes that their primary goal is not commercial success but artistic exploration and pleasure—often from female and queer perspectives. These magazines provide an example of pornography that foregrounds alternative desires and communities ignored by mainstream platforms.
Finally, Maria Corsianos’ “Mainstream Pornography and ‘Women’: Questioning Sexual Agency” examines whether North American women can achieve sexual agency within a patriarchal culture dominated by mainstream pornography. In mainstream porn, “the female actors often have long hair, are thin, often Caucasian, ‘young’ (usually between teens and 30s), have breast implants, wear lingerie, high heels and plenty of makeup” (Corsianos 2007). Even lesbian porn is frequently directed by men and mirrors the aesthetics and dynamics of heterosexual mainstream pornography.
Corsianos suggests that few women attempt to redefine or challenge assumptions about their sexual desires and performances, and she draws on MacKinnon and Dworkin to argue that agency can only be located in resistance. Because pornography reinforces the notion of women as objects, some feminists argue all women should reject it. Corsianos also engages with the idea of post-feminism—the claim that feminism has “done its job” and is now unnecessary—and questions whether such a society is possible without women’s genuine sexual agency.
She contends that for sexual agency to be realized, the category “woman” would have to lose its essentializing qualities, and society would need to move beyond rigid labels like “women,” “men,” “straight,” “gay,” and “bi.” Ultimately, she argues that true liberation cannot exist within a framework that continues to essentialize and objectify women through the lens of mainstream pornography.
To analyze how technological change amplifies patriarchal portrayals in porn, I employ an intersectional analysis. Christensen and Jensen’s work on “Doing Intersectional Analysis” describes intersectional analysis as an approach that must “encompass the interplay between structures and institutions at the macro-level, and identities and lived lives at the micro-level” (Christensen & Siim, 2006; Jensen, 2006). Intersectionality explores how structures of power overlap and interact.
In the context of this paper, intersectional analysis helps illuminate the power imbalance in gender that produces a male-centric porn industry. A key component of this method is attention to life stories: “Prins argues that narratives tell us how people draw on different categories in the construction of their life-story” (Christensen & Siim, 2006; Jensen, 2006). These narratives help map how individuals position themselves and are positioned within social categories such as gender, class, and ethnicity.
To apply this method, one could examine the life stories of sex workers and consumers. For example, a Black, working-class, queer woman would likely navigate the porn industry differently than a white, middle-class, heterosexual man. Intersectional analysis also foregrounds the experiences of LGBTQ+ performers and people of color, whose labor and representation are shaped by intersecting inequalities.
Intersectional analysis is particularly useful for understanding gender roles in pornography because it addresses the complexity of social dynamics and power imbalances. Unlike methods that focus on a single axis of identity, intersectionality considers the multiple identities that shape experience. It emphasizes lived experiences, countering the dehumanization and stigma often attached to sex work. By listening to sex workers’ narratives, we can develop a more empathetic understanding of the industry and its participants, and better trace how patriarchy, capitalism, and racism structure their conditions.
The rise of pornography is not just a reflection of sexual tastes but also a mechanism that reinforces patriarchal gender norms and the objectification of women. Drawing on Andrea Dworkin’s radical feminist theory, this paper has explored how pornography contributes to a culture of male dominance, sexual violence, and commodification of women’s bodies. Technological acceleration has expanded the reach and normalization of these dynamics.
Intersectional analysis shows how gender, race, class, and sexuality shape both the production and consumption of pornography. While feminist and post-porn alternatives offer more inclusive representations and challenge the mainstream, they remain niche compared to the scale and influence of conventional porn.
Ultimately, a comprehensive and destigmatized sex education, paired with continued critical engagement with pornography and media, is necessary to address the deep social impacts pornography has on gender relations. Without such efforts, porn will continue to act as a powerful teacher of hegemonic misogyny.